Method of dicing fruit



June 6, 1944; v E. w. CARROLL METHOD OF DICING FRUiT- Filed Nov. 18, 1940 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 V INVENTOR, ELLSWORTH w. CARROLL.

WCWKW ATTORNEYS.

n 94 E. WJCARROLL METHOD OF DICING FRUIT 'INVENTOR, ELLSWORTl-l W. CARROLL.

A T TORNE VS.

Patented June' 6, 1944 METHOD OF DICING FRUIT Ellsworth W. Carroll. San Carlos, Calif., asslgnor to S & W Fine Foods. Inc.. San Francisco, Calif., a corporation of California Application November 18, 1940, Serial No. 366,031

2 Claims. (01. 146-240) My invention relates to a method of dicing fruit, and more particularly to a method where the fruit is diced substantially symmetrically.

My invention is particularly applicable in the dicing of peaches and apricots, but also may be used for dicing any fruit which may be cored and which has a generally spherical shape.

Among the objects of my invention are: To provide a simple and efficient method of dicing generally spherical fruit such as peaches, apples, etc.; to provide a method of dicing fruit into truncated pyramidal units; to provide a method of dicing fruit with a minimum amount of waste, into units of closely related weight; to provide an apparatus for dicing fruit along radial planes; to provide a product comprising fruit units of truncated pyramidal shape.

My invention possesses numerous other objects and features of advantage, some of which, together with the foregoing, will be set forth in the following description of specific apparatus embodying and utilizing my novel method. It is therefore to be understood that my method is applicable to other apparatus, and that I do not limit myself, in any way, to the apparatus of the present application, as I may adopt various other apparatus embodiments, utilizing the method, within the scope of the appended claims.

There is a relatively large amount of fruit diced for mixing as fruit salad. Various kinds of fruit are diced and mixed together in order that the salad may be of definite composition. Heretofore, the usual custom has been to dice this fruit without regard to its shape, the dicing generally being accomplished by the use of knives cutting the fruit meat into cubes, or similar rectangularly shaped units. Inasmuch as practically'all fruit used in fruit salad is generally spherical in shape, cube dicing leads to the production'of a large number of fruit pieces which are of im proper size, and which have to be separated from the properly cubed portion by screening, in order that a lnOreor less uniformproduc't be obtained. The loss of fruit meat due to this necessary separation is considerable and costly, and the present invention is directed to a means and method of dicing fruit, so that the improperly diced portion of fruit meat is'negligible; in many'oases so negligible that it is'not necessary to make any attempt to remove it. Furtherniore. due to the inevitable geometrical conflict between square dicing apparatus, and the curvesfound on fruit. there will be, in fruit diced on the cubical plan a large number of pieces, which, while-they may have a general slze'reliationship to the main bbdy of fruit units, will be improperly shaped and will have combined with their rectangular surfaces, spherical surfaces which were areas of the original fruit surface. The inner meat of the fruit when diced on the cubical plan, for example, may be completely cubical. The outer meat carrying the surface of the fruit will be partly cubical and partly spherical in shape. Inasmuch as a large number of pieces will carry the fruit surface, the diced fr-uit will not'have a uniform appearance. The present invention dices the fruit so that a maximum amount of the fruit meat is in usable condition, and produces a product wherein practically all of the units produced have the same general symmetrical appearance.

I will describe my invention as applied to the dicing of both small and large peaches and in such a manner that the diced units from both small, medium and large fruit may be combined without changing the general uniformity of the product.

In the drawings:

I Fig. 1 is a vertical view partly in section and partly in elevation of a hand operated peach machine, embodying my invention.

Fig. 2 is a perspective view of one-quarter of a knife guide used for smaller peaches.

Fig. 3 is a perspective view of one-quarter of a knife guide used for larger peaches.

' Fig. 4 is a diagram showing a radially cut fruit unit as produced by the machine of Figsl and 2.

Fig. 5 is a view partly in section and partly in elevation of a portion of the device of Fig. 1 showing the loading position of the parts.

Fig. 6 is a top plan view of an entire knife guide used in Fig. 1.

Fig. '7 is a diagram showing the separation of themeat of large peach halves into concentric shells.

My invention may be more fully understood by direct reference to the drawings:

A frame bar I is provided through which a vertical shaft 2 is passed, this shaft being slidable in frame bearing 4. The lower end of rod 2 is connected to a foot pedal 5 so that pressure on foot pedal 5, forming a portion of lever B attached at one end of floor 1 will move rod 2 downwardly. Attached to theupper end of rod v2 is a fruit receiving platform 9 having a fruit positioning boss l0 on the upper surfacethereof, this boss being roughly hemispherical in shape to fit the pit or core removal cavity of a" halved fruit. In the case of peaches boss I0 is shaped to fit the cavity remaining after a halved peach has been pitted, as will be explained later. Platform 9 is maintained in its upper position by a platform spring ll surrounding rod 2, between frame I and platform 9. Thus, when foot pressure is released from pedal 5, platform Ill will rise to its upper position, under the influence of spring H. In this upper position platform 9 registers with an aperture [2 in a horizontal plate l4, this plate being supported from frame bar ,Iby. lateral angle irons: l5? Immediately lover. aperture 12 is mounted a knife guide l6, forming a cover over platform 9. spherical in shape and of sufficient inside diameter to accommodate peach halv'e'so'f prede- Knife guide [6 is preferably hemi-.,

the number of units 52 per peach is only eight.

termined maximum size, jwithout., crowding. I

Knife guide It is also provided with inner knives l 9 and 29 crossing at 90, and extending-inwardly.

toward b0ss'l0 to bottom in slots cut in said bosswhen platform 9 is in its'upper position; The

' I -It'*Wi11 be noticed that each peach half car- ,ries at one end thereof, half of the stem indent of the fruit, Consequently, one top unit 50a will he. missing in'each quarter. I have therefore designed the size of unit 50a with relation to the 7 stem: indent volume included in each quarter, so

lower edges of knives l9 and are preferably sharpened so that when a peach half as represented, by thedotted line 2| in. Figs. 1 and 5, 'is on theplatf'onn and'the platformraised into the upper position; the peach'half will 'be quartered. "In Fig. 3, I-haveshown 'one-quarter' of the spherical area of the knife guide IS in perspec tive. Knife slots 22 are cut through knife guide l6 using a twelve-unitpattern. "A plurality; of knife assemblies are provided, each assembly'be ingmounted' on a radially extending stem 24; and each knife assembly comprisesa plurality of radially extending blades =25; These blades extend.

knives withdrawnfby plate springs 36, and is moved to its lower positioni-withthe knives pro jected into the fruit byhand'lever '3h'co nected by cranks 39 and rods 49 tc'plate 34. 51 f'f Thus the. mechanism Ihave described permits the mounting of half a; 'pittedf peach' on "boss; III while platip m 9- is its 'l'owes'tfpositiQn; with means for returning th platform "to 'itsd pen most "position, thereby causing the fruithalf to become quarteredby crossed knives I 9 "and-"29. After platform 9 with'the fruit "thereon has been quartered, blades 25 may then'baforced 'radi'-'- ally and simultaneously'into "the fruit by movement 'of new 34 to dice each' quarter into-sag ments or units such as shown in Fig. 4. -Thes'e units will be of truncated pyramidal shape,"with an outer sphericalfsurface lljfrom the outside surface of {the peach, {and "an i'nneif' and smaller spherical surface 42 from the pit cavity surface,

with radially cut plane surfaces 43 on the'sides of theunitl Surfaces M and will be roughly concentric? In'the case of tl ie'blade pattern shown in mg;

3, all cf the fruit'units produced will havex'a' quadrangular cross-section; This" pattern is for.

a medium-"sizedor large-peach; Four bladeassemblies "are-used;"and eachi boundary of the that the adjacent units are not greatly affected by the out including the stem indent area. In factI find that it isadvisable to so adjust the blade spacing; so that there maybe a slight cut into the two units adjacent unit50a 'in'order that these pieces may-be properly shaped. The small amount of meat cut from around the stem indent-may be disregarded in the final-product. Inasmuchas two' units corresponding to the stem indent .are lost for each 'half,*the"pattern of; -Fig. 1.3 will produce 92 'truncated symmetric'al' units per peach, all cf'the same order cf weight, with .68; havinga substantially square cross-sec tion' (units 59) and 24 having a modified quadrangular cross-sectioniunits 5| and 52). 'How-' ever,- as. above pointed out, the difference in weight and size between pieces 505I', and pieces 52 is not suflicient to benoticed in the final product. 1

The pattern illustrated in Fig. 2 is for a-smaller peach. In this case the three .sidesof the quarter" are trisected by the blades and three blades are usedon each blade assembly. 1 With this: design 52; truncated pyramidal units Ware produced,;44 having a substantially square-crosssectio'n and of uniformweight, and 8 of lower weight and having a triangular section, the lat ter .'comprising'center units'6l.- "In'this case the units: 5|). compare very favorably in size and weight with units 52 cut by the pattern of Fig. 3, and the weightof lateralunits is very-close tothe weight of lateralunits '50 in the design of-Fig; 3, although the unitsfrom the larger peach 'willbe somewhat longer radially.

. Thus it'can beseen-that by using the pattern of Fig. 2 on the smaller peaches andthe pattern of"F'ig.-3-on the medium sized andlarger peaches, that the units producedfrom each cutting pattern-Imay be readily mixed together, and after they areronce "mixed, the uniformity of the product is such that units from= the two size pieces cannot be grossly distinguished, as thepresence of thesrnallest units 52 and6l can only be'seen by close inspection- In practice paches may be separated into three-"grades, generally large generally medium'and generally small, and the medium and small peaches diced separately in machines built in accordance withFignl, one of themihaving-a blade :pattern of Fig. 3, andthenotherthe-pattern of'Figi2. Y 'Onerreasonforthe-symmetry of the radially out fruit units-is that many modern peach pitting-machines saw the peach and pit in half. along the seam plane and by means of a. rotary knife 19: as shown diagrammatically .in :Fig; 7, cut outa:-hemis'pherical inner-portion H of the peach whichrincludes the 'pit half; -Thusithe pit cavity.

becomes uniformly hemispherical peaches so pitted.

Large peaches may be handled in a slightly different manner. At the time of pitting with the rotary knife 10 previously described, another rotary knife 12 rotating concentrically with the pitting knife may be used to separate the meat of each half into two concentric shells I4 and 15 as shown diagrammatically in Fig. '7, and each shell may be of substantially the same radial thickness. The shells may then be separated and the larger shell 14 diced in a machine having a blade pattern of Fig. 3, with however, a central boss made slightly larger to fit the cavity left by the removal of the inner shell. 15 may then be diced by a machine using the blade pattern of Fig. 2. This will produce 52 units from the inner shell and 92 units from the outer shells, thus making a total of 144 units per large peach. A large peach, say of 3 inch diameter will weigh about 2.75 times as much as one of 2 /2 inch diameter which compares very favorably with the ratio of 2.775-1 for the number of segments (144) out from both shells of the large peach, and the number of segments (52) cut from a smaller peach. The peaches may therefore be divided into three general groups, large, medium and small, radially and symmetrically diced, and the units mixed toin all the gether to form a substantial uniform product.

The fruit units from each machine when mixed together give a mass product which has an extremely uniform character, far more uniform in appearance than a screened product made by square dicing. The meat loss with the radial The inner shell type of cutting herein described is very low. The product to the eye is uniformly shaped, as all of the units are quadrangular in cross-section with the exception of the small percentage of units 6|, which is very small when mixed with fruit units produced by the cutting pattern of Fig. 3.

I claim:

1. The method of dicing stoned substantially spherical shaped fruit with a minimum amount of waste into units of closely related weight, and whereby all of said units can be used Without any further screening operation to provide a uniformly diced product, which comprises providing stoned halved fruit, cutting the stoned halved fruit into substantially equal sections and simultaneously making in said sections a plurality of radially directed planar cuts only, which intersect with each other on a plurality of lines Within the fruit, the lines of intersection of any two different planes forming a substantial angle with each other, said cuts intersecting to produce a plurality of truncated pyramidal units.

2. The method of dicing stoned substantially spherical shaped fruit which comprises, providing stoned halved fruit, cutting the stoned halved fruit into substantially equal sections and simultaneously making in said sections a plurality of radially directed intersecting planar cuts only, which intersect with each other on a plurality of intersecting lines within the fruit, said cuts intersecting to produce a plurality of truncated pyramidal units.

ELLSWORTH W. CARROLL. 

